We have to inform you that a problem occured when processing your last payment (code: 3132224-M, $789.$63).The receipt is in the attachment. Please study it and contact us.

-King Regards,Juliet Langley

The name of the sender will vary, as will the reference number and dollar amounts. Attached is a ZIP file with a name somewhat matching the reference (e.g. MPay3132224.zip) containing in turn a malicious Javascript with a name similar to ~_AB1C2D_~.js.

My trusted source says that the scripts download a component from one of the following locations:

Fanrong Europe Fund is a registered hedge fund that managed by a team of stock market experts that located in Zurich, Switzerland. The Fanrong Europe Fund Strategy is Long/Short Equity. The Fund was launched in April 2014. It is open-ended hedge fund. We are open for new investors.

We welcome you to contact us through our web-site to learn more about investing with us:
www.FanrongFund.info

If you do not want to receive this newsletter send an email to: unsubscribe@fanrongfund.info

NOTICE: Your address was obtained from open sources where you were agreed to receive the marketing information from third parties.

I have received two of these emails, one coming from the IPs 188.69.207.57 and 188.69.223.168 which are both allocated to a mobile phone provider in Lithuania (UPDATE: also 188.69.223.54). The website fanrongfund.info was created just a few days ago (28th July 2016) and is registed to the following (presumably fake) registrant:

The site is hosted (apparently) in the British Virgin Islands on an IP allocated to the Public Domain Registry (PDR). It uses nameservers from Russian company AYBHOST.COM.

The website is pretty generic looking and opens with these words of wisdom:

Our main trade approach is:"Close the position if it runs to loss, and hold it if it runs to profit".

Hans Messnerfund manager "Fanrong Europe Fund"

What next. "Buy low, sell high"? Here are some screenshots in case you see another version of this on your travels:

The "About" page carries this text:

We are the EU-domiciled investment manager with successful experience in stock trade in EU. Our professional assets managers have personal approach to trade with bear and bulls market. We use self-made investment strategy that allows getting the constant positive result in short-term horizon. All investment process is in full accordance with IIS (International Investment Standards) of Fanrong Capital (Hong Kong) (fanrongcapital.com).

The file downloaded is stu.rar which in turn contains an executable milano.exe. I'm going to take a guess and suggest that this is a Very Bad File, although the VirusTotal report give a detection rate of just 1/55 with McAfee flagging it as "BehavesLike.Win32.BackdoorNJRat.gc"

Both the Malwr and Hybrid Analysis reports show that it hooks into the OS and attempts to avoid detection. Crucially, they both show network traffic to gee.duia.eu on 185.19.85.138 (Datawire, Switzerland).

So, McAfee thinks this is a RAT and there's suspect network traffic, but what do the email headers tell us?

The "X-MDRemoteIP" header shows that the email originates from the same server it is phoning home to. This is unusual because most spam these days come from botnets, and if the originating server gets shut down for spam then the infected clients won't be able to phone home. The email routes through servers belong to jackys.com in the UAE, perhaps indicating that someone has altered their systems to allow the malicious traffic to route through.

185.19.85.138 is therefore a server of interest, but a quick look at the IP and the neighbourhood indicate that this isn't just a single popped server.. there are 58 IPs hosting what appears to be malicious data (listed at the end) taking up the entire 185.19.85.128/26 range.

I'm betting that renting a /26 slice of Swiss servers isn't cheap.

Out of all the malicious domains (listed at the end of the post), one stands out boss.milano22.com (because the binary is named milano.exe). That is related to this malware, but the WHOIS details reveal no clues.

Another one that also caught my eye because it is multihomed on so many IPs is zexio.no-ip.biz which is related to this malware from 2012 which is variously identified as Shakblades and/or Blackshades, both illicit RAT tools.

Looking at various other domains shows that they are connected with other malicious activity over the past two years or so. What that means is that this operation is not only big, but has been going on for some time.

For research purposes, a copy of the malware is here (Zip file, password=infected)

Personally, I would recommend that you block all dynamic DNS domains on a corporate network, and combined with the other potentially malicious domains gives the following recommended blocklist:

Please find attached a remittance advice (JT934IYIP.doc) for your information.
Should you need any further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best regards
PEEL SOUTH EAST

Attached is a Word document with a filename matching the body one in the text. Every email attachment we have seen so far is slightly different, but there seem to be just two different malicious macros [1][2] [pastebin] which download a component from one of the following locations:

Inside is a malicious VBS script. It is likely that there are several different versions, the one working sample I saw looked like this [pastebin] which is very similar to the VBA macro used in this spam run yesterday.

Because there are probably several different versions of this script, there are probably several different download locations. In this case, a fake .GIF file is downloaded from a malware server at 193.26.217.202 (Servachok Ltd, Russia) which is actually an .EXE file, but it gets saved as a .CAB file. For no very good reason it is passed through EXPAND which does nothing but save it to %TEMP%\giuguiGIUGdsuf87t6F.exe.

This binary has a detection rate of 4/55. Automated analysis tools [1][2][3][4] show that the malware attempts to phone home to:

I hope you are OK. I am writing you to let you know that total amount specified in the contract has been paid into your bank account on the 12th of February at 15:25 via BACS payment system and should reach the destination (beneficiary's) account within 3 working days.
To see full payment details please refer to the remittance advice note attached to the letter.

Any queries? Please reply back with your questions and you will receive a prompt and qualitative response as soon as possible. Please do not hesitate to write us.

Gale Barlow
Accounts Manager
4D PHARMA PLC

Boyd Huffman
Accounts Payable
GETECH GROUP

There is a malicious Word document attached to the email, so far I have only seen one version of this but usually there are two or more. The document itself has a low detection rate of 1/57 and it contains a malicious macrowhich downloads a file from the following location:

http://62.76.188.221/aksjdderwd/asdbwk/dhoei.exe

This is saved as %TEMP%\dsHHH.exe and has a detection rate of 7/57, identifed as a Dridex downloader. Automated analysis tools [1][2][3][4] show a variety of activities, including communications with the following IPs:

Tuesday, 26 November 2013

46.19.139.236 (Private Layer Inc, Switzerland) seems to be serving up some sort of Java exploit kit via injection attacks which is utilising hijacked legitimate domains, but the domains in use seem to rotate pretty quickly and I haven't got a copy of the payload, but VirusTotal has some examples. These are the domains that I can find running from this IP:

These seem to be a mix of GoDaddy, 1&1 and eNom registered domains that have been hijacked. Ones listed in italics have been flagged as malicious by Google:boostprep.combyjohnwhitaker.comclermontjumps.comddghost.comgolfrangefinderpro.comharrismetals.netharrismetals.bizhemorrhoidhometreatmentremedy.comherdprogram.comhouston-heights-realtor.commigweldersforsale.orgmodelagent.comq-host.comredbrickplayers.orgroadally.orgshattertag.comskillstuff.comsleepets.comsouthlakehosting.comsugarlandtxhouses.comtreatmentforeczemaguide.comwildbounce.com

We want to bring to your notice that you have made mistakes when completing the most recent tax form NAT3799 (ID: 023520).
You can find recommendations and tips from our tax specialists HERE
(Wait 2 minutes for the report to load)

We ask you to correct the error and send the corrected report to your tax advisor as soon as possible.

The link leads to an exploit kit at [donotclick]africanbeat.net/detects/urgent.php (report here) hosted on the familiar IP address of 222.238.109.66 (Hanaro Telecom, Korea). The following domains are active on this server: